16 Years
by Paradoxical Ruby
Summary: Short Phan-centric story. The title should explain it all. Mild trigger warning for depression and hinted self-harm.


The news comes quick. It's spread all over England—and soon all over the world—like a massive black storm cloud. And there's nowhere it hangs heavier than over the once-colorful apartment in London.

1 Year Past:

Dan can't face the streets, not when he knows that they're responsible for taking the life of his best friend. He can barely look outside. It's as if he lives inside a tunnel, and the light at the end grows smaller and smaller with every passing day.

2 Years Past:

Half the apartment is gone. Dan is reluctant to let Phil's belongings go, but his friends insist it'll help clear the air around him. Needless to say he doesn't call them friends anymore.

3 Years Past:

He knows there is no God in this world. What God would choke out an innocent light before it was time?

He knows there is a God in this world, one that takes and then laughs at the victims left alive.

He knows there is no God in this world, only the cold, barren universe, which gives and removes life at random.

He knows there is a God in this world, a lonely one that steals sweet, happy souls to have for himself. That he can understand.

4 Years Past:

He sits in a corner with a blade at his feet and red all around him, though maybe that's just an illusion.

His arms sting. He bites at his lip.

"I'm sorry," he chokes out to the ghost waiting in the depths of his mind. "I'm sorry I never told you how I feel. I made you feel unwanted. That was why you had to go."

The ghost shakes its head, but it doesn't matter. Dan well and truly believes it.

5 Years Past:

Something tells him it's time he get himself in order. He tries his hardest to wipe his emotions clean and brave the streets with a smile.

He comes home one night with fog in his brain and a bitter taste running down his throat. He collapses on the couch in a drunken haze and buries his face in his sorrow.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he repeats on end, for it seems that's all he can say anymore.

He'll be found the next day by one of his parents, unconscious and drowning in tears.

6 Years Past:

He's angry. Everything is wrong. This was never supposed to happen. Life was supposed to continue in a simple, linear fashion that would maybe one day result in the two of them being together.

He can't say who he's angry with for ruining his plan. The city, for being a poisonous hellhole. Phil, for being impossibly careless. Himself, for being eternally ungrateful.

His new therapist tells him to set all that aside. No one did anything wrong. Being angry with the past is pointless. Your life can only move in a single direction. So Dan directs his anger at the therapist instead.

7 Years Past:

Dan puts the city behind him. Maybe forever, or maybe just for a while. He isn't sure.

Phil's family is still near Manchester, just where they've always been. Dan envies them, just a little. They have each other, a tight circle they can fall back on even if Phil is no longer in the center of it. Does he have that kind of support too?

The answer is yes, he learns, when Phil's mum answers him at the door with a melancholy embrace.

8 Years Past:

Dan is down by a pond somewhere in Phil's old neighborhood. He sits on a bench, eyes lowered down to gaze at the water.

Occasionally, throughout his entire life up until this point, Dan would wonder what it would be like to have the sixth sense. If he ever got close to actually experiencing it, that time would be now. He thinks he can see two little boys go zooming past on bikes. It's like footage ripped out of an old film. They look unsettlingly familiar.

He closes his eyes, expecting gloom to set in. Instead, he feels something more akin to comfort, knowing that this was a place where his friend had been safe and happy.

"Please," he whispers, "Let me feel happy here too."

9 Years Past:

Dan's thirty-fifth birthday. He smiles as Phil's family dances around him.

 _Guess I have to face it_ , he thinks with a tinge of humor, _I'm not really young anymore._

His thoughts travel to a distant plane, one he doesn't really understand, but he pretends to. He imagines Phil aging alongside him, and it brings a warm, welcome tear to his eye.

10 Years Past:

He can't believe it's been this long. At once he's both thankful and not thankful for the distance put between him and that fateful day.

When the time comes that he decides to face the city again, he does it with a determined look sewn on his face.

11 Years Past:

His apartment looks mostly the same. It smells mostly the same. It feels mostly the same.

The only new presence he can detect is faint, but strong. Everything, from the floorboards to the chairs in the kitchen, carries the aroma of hope.

12 Years Past:

Dan comes home alone the night he was expecting to have someone with him. It was his choice, and his alone, to send his date back to her own house. It didn't feel awkward or anything. It was just something he knew he had to do.

His old friends had insisted he try to get back into the world, and he did try. He had just learned that dating wasn't the way he wanted to do it.

He tells them this, and they understand. His reconciliation with them makes a huge difference. London suddenly doesn't feel so scary anymore.

13 Years Past:

Valentine's Day, with Phil's birthday just past. Dan can go out to eat with his friends and only feel the slightest hint of guilt.

Late that night, shortly after he gets home, he goes out again and buys a box of chocolates, cliché as it is, then leaves it open on the counter in the kitchen.

He can swear, as he leaves the room, that he sees someone smile.

14 Years Past:

Rousing suddenly from a late afternoon doze on the couch, Dan finds his face damp with old tears. He gazes at the ceiling with wide eyes.

"Were you in my dream?"

Silence.

"You know, you're welcome to come by and visit any time you want."

 _I could never do that. I don't want to make you sad._

Dan beams at the empty space. "No need to worry about that. You'd only bring me company."

15 Years Past:

"You know, Phil, I never told you, but you were the first person I really loved. I never had a best friend before you. You meant a lot to me."

 _Really? I did?_

"You did. Although, I think part of the problem was that I never admitted this to myself."

. _..Dan? Are you crying?_

...

"No. I'm crafting."

 _...Shut up._

16 Years Past:

It's been sixteen years since Phil died. Dan doesn't feel as alone as he once thought he would.


End file.
